


Salt

by selahexanimo



Category: The Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Genre: Child Abandonment, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selahexanimo/pseuds/selahexanimo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love does not make Murtagh better, however much he wants it to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mymira89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mymira89/gifts).



Murtagh remembers his mother: the crush of her arms when she cradled him, the scent of rosewater in the hot crevice of her neck. She had crept into his bedchamber, one night, and fished him from sleep; he had slouched, woozy and bewildered, in her arms, and she had kissed his forehead with her hard mouth.

“Murtagh. Mama’s baby.” She clasped his chin and lifted his face to hers. “You've made me soft, Murtagh. I can love anyone now that I love you.”

(But her body had told another story, one he was too young to read. Her grip hurt; her arms smothered. She left his father’s castle, that night, and Murtagh never saw her again.)

He thinks of her now, as he clenches Thorn to him.

The dragon is larger than he was the night before (and he will be larger tomorrow—growing like a cancer, Galbatorix’s vicious magic in his blood). Thorn thrashes and screeches as the king’s spell stretches his limbs like rubber. His scales cut Murtagh’s face and hands. Murtagh holds him down, babbling spells of healing, of calm, of sleep—but they do nothing.

Is this what his mother felt, Murtagh thinks, when she looked at him for the last time? This hot churning in her stomach, this terror tightening her chest, this hopelessness making her dizzy?

He wants her to have felt the pain he feels now—he wants her to hurt for leaving him, for saving his brother and leaving him in Morzan’s castle.

He wants to believe that she told him the truth, when she said that her love for him made her better. (That is not quite what she said, but he takes this as her meaning, because then he will not wonder if she loved him; he will _know_ that she did, and know that she always mean to come back for him.) He wants the words she spoke the night she left to be true, because then they can be true for him as well. He wants his helpless, terrible love for Thorn to make him bigger, better, as his mother's love made her bigger, better.

But love has made him smaller. Love has sown salt in his bones.

“You’ve made me soft, Thorn,” he whispers to the dragon (talismantic words; he wants them to be true). “I can love anyone now that I love you.”

But no. He is lying. The lie is thick at the back of his throat. He can love nothing, now, _nothing_ , because he loves this dragon more than life.

Murtagh is born with only so much love to give, and Thorn has drunk it all, emptied Murtagh of even his dregs. The Rider is drained and there is salt in his heart, so that nothing can grow there.

And he thinks, perhaps that is what his mother felt, and why she left him in the end.


End file.
